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What Is Religiosity? Holdcroft/WHAT IS RELIGIOSITY? 89 REVIEW OF RESEARCH WHAT IS RELIGIOSITY? BARBARA HOLDCROFT The University of Toledo Lourdes College RELIGIOSITY eligiosity is a complex concept and difficult to define for at least two Rreasons. The first reason is the uncertainty and imprecise nature of the English language. Colloquially, in Roget’s Thesaurus (Lewis, 1978), religios- ity is found to be synonymous with such terms as religiousness, orthodoxy, faith, belief, piousness, devotion, and holiness. These synonyms reflect what studies of religiosity would term as dimensions of religiosity, rather than terms that are equivalent to religiosity. A second reason for this complexity is that current interest in the con- cept of religiosity crosses several academic disciplines, each approaching religiosity from different vantage points, and few consulting one another (Cardwell, 1980; Demerath & Hammond, 1969). For example, a theologian would address religiosity from the viewpoint of faith (Groome & Corso, 1999), while religious educators could focus on orthodoxy and belief (Groome, 1998). Psychologists might choose to address the dimensions of devotion, holiness, and piousness, whereas sociologists would consider the concept of religiosity to include church membership, church attendance, belief acceptance, doctrinal knowledge, and living the faith (Cardwell, 1980). This use of different terms across academic disciplines to identify what could be thought of as like dimensions of religiosity makes it difficult to discuss without an explicit definition from the viewpoint of religious edu- cation and the application of that knowledge to the lived experience. DIMENSIONS OF RELIGIOSITY Glock and Stark (1965) have been influential in defining religious orienta- tions, origins, and dimensions. In doing so, Glock and Stark identified five dimensions of religiosity: experiential, ritualistic, ideological, intellectual, and consequential. The experiential dimension focuses on the personal faith experience, perhaps a transcendent encounter, while the ritualistic domain involves the worship experience that is involved in community. The ideolog- ical dimension is “constituted by expectations that the religious will hold to Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice, Vol. 10, No. 1, September 2006, 89-103 © 2006 Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice 90 Catholic Education/September 2006 certain beliefs” (i.e., professed doctrines), and the intellectual dimension “has to do with the expectation that the religious person will be informed and knowledgeable about the basic tenets of his faith and sacred scriptures” (i.e., history, sacraments, morality; p. 20). Glock and Stark admitted that these lat- ter two dimensions are closely related, “since knowledge of a belief is a nec- essary condition for its acceptance” (pp. 20-21). However, they also acknowledged that belief does not necessarily flow from knowledge, nor does all religious knowledge accompany belief. Fukuyama (1960) examined four dimensions of religiosity that he iden- tified as cognitive, cultic, creedal, and devotional, which are summarized in Cardwell (1980): The cognitive dimension is concerned with what individuals know about religion, i.e., religious knowledge. The cultic dimension makes reference to the individ- ual’s religious practices, i.e., ritualistic behavior. The creedal dimension is con- cerned with a personal religious belief, and the devotional dimension refers to a person’s religious feelings and experiences, i.e., the experiential dimension. (p. 6) Once again, it is possible to exemplify religiosity through religious knowl- edge but still be lacking in the other three dimensions: cultic, creedal, and devotional. And again, acquisition of one dimension of religiosity, perhaps the cultic dimension, does not guarantee the acquisition of any of the others. As with Glock and Stark (1965), religiosity in one dimension does not nec- essarily flow into all dimensions of religiosity. Allport and Ross (1967) identified two basic dimensions of religiosity: extrinsic and intrinsic. They interpreted extrinsic religiosity as a self-serving and utilitarian outlook on religion that provides the believer with comfort in salvation. These individuals are disposed to use religion for their own ends, such as status, sociability, and self-justification, and often selectively shape a creed to fit their own ends. A person with intrinsic religiosity is one who internalizes the total creed of his or her faith and moves beyond mere church attendance. These individuals find their master motive for life in religion, and their other needs are brought into harmony with their religious beliefs: “The extrinsically motivated person uses his religion, whereas the intrinsical- ly motivated person lives his religion” (p. 434). Again, this finding is simi- lar to previously reported research. Lenski (1963) identified four different ways in which religiosity might be expressed: associational, communal, doctrinal, and devotional. In agree- ment with Glock and Stark (1965), Lenski felt that it is possible to be reli- gious in one way without being religious in other ways and found data to support this claim. A person could be highly visible within a church commu- nity but not truly accept its doctrines; or one could be extremely devotional Holdcroft/WHAT IS RELIGIOSITY? 91 in private. A religious person may not allow some dimensions of religiosity to invade daily life; a person may know or believe, but not live accordingly. Attempting to describe the broadest range of religiosity, Bergan and McConatha (2000) defined religiosity as a number of dimensions associated with religious beliefs and involvement. In arriving at this definition, they pointed out that early research associated with religiosity focuses primarily on the unidimensional concept of religious attendance. These researchers noted that reliance on religious attendance alone as a measure of religiosity could lead to incorrect conclusions, especially in studies with older adults for whom attendance might pose a physical problem. For this population, the aspects or dimensions of religiosity, such as private devotions and religious belief systems, may serve as more accurate measures of religiosity (Ellison, 1991; Ellison, Gay, & Glass, 1989; Kristensen, Pedersen, & Williams, 2001). Other recent studies of religiosity stressed a multidimensional focus of religiosity that encompassed such concepts as the subjective, cognitive, behavioral, social, and cultural dimensions (Chumbler, 1996; Ellison, 1991; Ellison et al., 1989). Aspects of religiosity such as private devotion are also accepted as important, going beyond the emphasis merely on church atten- dance. Interest in the measurement of religiosity has led to an exploration of the relationship among multiple dimensions of religiosity. Ellison et al. (1989) examined three dimensions of religiosity: private devotion, religious attendance, and denominational connection. Ellison’s later study (1991) expanded on and examined four dimensions of religiosity: denominational ties, social integration, personal sense of the divine, and existential certainty. Similarities exist in the dimensions of cognitive and intellectual; com- munal is similar to denominational ties and religious attendance; social inte- gration is similar to the dimensions of intrinsic/extrinsic religiosity. Many researchers placed an emphasis on the dimension of religiosity that deals with religious knowledge (Chumbler, 1996; Fukuyama, 1960; Glock & Stark, 1965; Lenski, 1963), while only a few focused on the application of that knowledge (Allport & Ross, 1967; Ellison, 1991). There has been disagreement regarding the importance of this link between the cognitive dimension of religiosity and behavior. Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle (1997) wrote religious knowledge, that is, the knowledge of a religion’s scripture and tradi- tion, is not considered a good measure of religiosity, simply because the major- ity of believers surveyed, in Western countries at least, seem to be quite ignorant of what are considered basic elements of (their own) religious tradition. (p. 109) Conversely, Stark and Glock (1968) wrote, “it is obvious that some min- 92 Catholic Education/September 2006 imum knowledge is necessary for religious commitment; the tenets and ritu- als of a religion must be known if they are to be believed and practiced” (p. 141). Many authors (Allport & Ross, 1967; Cardwell, 1980; Glock & Stark, 1965) agreed that beliefs and religious participation can be practiced in vir- tual ignorance, yet they also acknowledged that all religious institutions expect their members to know doctrine, to participate in ritual, and to have comprehension of both. MEASUREMENT OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE Because the term religiosity is widely used, but difficult to define in a man- ner that is agreed upon by all researchers, there is a wide variety of measure- ment tools being developed to examine the individual dimensions of religios- ity. Approaching religiosity from different academic disciplines affects both the focus and the content of the measurement tool. Intellectual Dimension/Orthodoxy The intellectual dimension of religiosity involves the expectation that the reli- gious person will be informed about the chosen faith; the measurement of this dimension would be with a test of faith knowledge. For example, Glock and Stark (1965) suggested that religious literacy tests be constructed that would include a wide range of questions on the origin and
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